The Inconstant Moon
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: Do you know what red is? [Madam Red/Grell; Ciel/Sebastian; Little Red Riding Hood AU]
1. Chapter 1

Of red samite the cloak was made, each hem invisibly stitched. His aunt spent long hours on the silken marvel, her titian hair cast into brightness from the windowpanes, the gold-shining folds shimmering like wings across her lap. When she had finished, and she tucked it across his shoulders and pulled the hood over his night-black hair, he saw how distant and strange her expression had become, and he did not have the heart to tell her he had always preferred blue.

"What a splendid riding-hood it is," the butler murmured, meekly, from the table where he poured the morning tea.

"Is it?" Aunt Angelina asked, quiet. "Do you know what the color red is, Ciel?"

Ciel frowned. "Red is an illusion, aunty. Just like any color—a refraction of white light; it is the only way our brains know to perceive the different wavelengths. And a limited one at that."

In the background, the butler laughed, quietly, and spilled the tea onto the table, staining the white cloth. Neither Ciel nor Madam Red reacted, save for a small, inaudible sigh from the mistress; Sutcliff was quite adept with javelle-water, with such frequent incidents as these.

"Red is a signal," his aunt replied. "A warning, of poison; a ward against the predator."

"So," Ciel asked, cockily, "this cloak means I'm not good to eat?"

Madam Red sighed. "Very smart, Ciel." She stood up to hand him the basket that Sutcliff brought forward, and continued with a businesslike tone. "Be quick on your way to the Middlefords'; don't let Finnian become distracted. You know how much I worry…"

"They say the streets aren't safe, these nights," the butler added, with a strange hint of a smile on his half-turned face. "With all the murders going on."

Madam Red turned to him and spoke, acerbic. "I should hardly think my nephew would be at risk from _that_ ; you know 'he' only goes after the fallen, lowest creatures…" her composure crumbling, she stood with her hands clenched. "Vile, despicable things, giving up their own children…"

"Of course," the butler said, placatingly. "I only meant to remind the boy." But remind him of what, Grell did not say.

"I'll be going then," Ciel said, although the adults were no longer listening—his aunt still angry; although as he made his way back to the morning room doors, the butler met his eyes with his own peculiar, acid-green ones, blurred behind his full-moon spectacles.

"Red is a signal of danger," Grell continued, "but also of passion. Some even use it to attract a mate." He spoke quietly, as though to himself, but his eyes did not waver until Ciel had slipped through the door and away.

It was beautiful out. The sun was high with bright morning light as Ciel met the coachman, who greeted him with a merry smile, the clips in his blond hair glinting.

"Off to visit the Lady Elizabeth, I see?" he asked.

"Yes," Ciel answered shortly. "Madam Red says we are not to dawdle," he added, with some irony, and took Finnian's help into the carriage.

The curtains in the carriage were vermilion. The sun reached its way with admirable persistence into the dark contraption, but trembled at the look in Ciel's eyes and fled before it had more than touched the dark scrap of cloth covering the goodies in the basket.

"I musn't touch it," Ciel said to himself. But oh, the sweets were so very tempting, and he was rather hungry… still. It would not be proper to arrive at his cousin and fiancée's house having devoured the gifts. He folded his hands atop each other and stared out, out the red drapes with the red cloak lying coiled around him.

 _Red is a signal_ , Ciel thought. A signal of injury and harm, death and blood, blood.

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	2. Chapter 2

Ever since the fire that carried away his parents, Ciel had resided with his aunt and her strange butler. He knew she loved him, that her ministrations were born out of worry and grief, but Ciel had become unsatisfied with being treated as a child, when he no longer felt like one at all. His childhood toys were gone, eaten by the fulvous flames; the bodies of his parents were gone, charred by the heat; every wall and every floor were gone, nothing but ruins, and Ciel the only thing left, the last reminder of the Phantomhive home.

"This is far enough, I think," Ciel announced, when they had gone most of the ways and he could see the high white walls of the Middleford Manor in the distance.

"Are you sure?" Finny asked, with awkwardness. "If the mistress has noticed a delay, perhaps it would be best to drive all the way to the gates?"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Ciel said, taking the basket on his arm and hopping out of the carriage. "It's solved easily enough. You shall turn around here and go back at once, and I will continue on my own. That way, she will see you arrive back when she expects you and no later."

"But, young master!" Finnian gasped. "Are you sure it's safe?"

"Safe?" Ciel scoffed. "Why wouldn't it be? It's not as if I'm wandering through the countryside, the house is right there, over the hill! Anyway, I'm not going to stop enjoying the scenery just because it doesn't get me somewhere fast enough."

"Well… If you say so, my lord," Finny said doubtfully.

"I do. Well? Go on then." Ciel watched as Finny turned the carriage and continued back the way he had come. In the sudden silence it left behind, there was a hush in the small wood, an open, uncomplicated stillness that put Ciel at ease. Sometimes he thought that the space and quiet in this spot were the only reasons he tolerated these social visits at all.

But he really ought to be on his way. Ciel meandered along the path, dappled with the dancing chiaroscuro of leaf-patterns, becoming quite lost in thought, until all of a sudden his eyes caught, as if from the very corner of his vision, the blurring shape of a large animal stalking its way through the forest, silent, pacing its way with his steps. _There's nothing there!_ Ciel chastised himself. _You've just been influenced by everyone's mollycoddling_. But there—again! A shadow, darting through the trees quite beside him. Ciel stopped and stared very hard at the trees. _There are no wolves in these parts,_ he reminded himself, and then, because he could do nothing else, he set his resolve and continued to walk.

Just at the edge of the forest, where the path dipped into sunlit, grassy valleys rolling onward toward the manor, was a great riven stone, black no matter how much light tarried there. As Ciel approached it, he realized with surprise that it was not alone, but a figure sat crouching casually upon it, a good few feet above the path, and peering down with an amused expression. This figure was, to all appearances, a young gentleman, dressed in black; his crow-feather hair swinging its way across his face as he turned his head to follow Ciel's path.

"That's a funny place to sit," Ciel said at last, when he had drawn almost level with the man.

"Is it?" the man asked, lightly, amusement sparkling in his wine-red eyes. "Not so much as that's a funny place to walk, when you had a coach."

"Oh!" Ciel said. "I didn't see you," he added doubtfully.

"You were preoccupied," the man answered. "It's not so surprising." At once, he leaped down lightly from the stone, to give Ciel a little half-bow. It was almost mocking, and certainly improper, as they were of the same station, but Ciel saw no mockery in the man's gaze, only mischief. "My name is Sebastian Michaelis," he said, in his low, pleasant voice.

"Ciel Phantomhive," Ciel returned. "I suppose—do you live around here? Or are you visiting the Middlefords' too?"

Sebastian chuckled. "Nothing so particular as that, I'm afraid," he said. "I'm merely passing through."

"Without a carriage?" Ciel asked, raising an eyebrow. "A likely story."

"Indeed," Sebastian said. "Perhaps you will find out a likelier one." He stepped up to Ciel, companionably, as though they had known each other for quite some time. "At any rate, allow me to escort you the rest of the way; it would be quite a shame if some brigands were to run into such a defenseless young boy."

Ciel glared at the mirth on the man's face, his own face burning with embarrassment. "I am not some young maiden!" He burst out. "I don't need escorting—and certainly not from _you_! In fact," he added, "you are just the sort of rascal that people ought to be warned away _from_. Bastard," he added, before he could quite stop himself. Ciel flushed even further at his outburst, which seemed all at once both very childish and incredibly familiar, but Sebastian did not seem either offended or truly patronizing; indeed, he stared at Ciel with a strange look that Ciel could not place, a small secretive kind of smile.

"My apologies," Sebastian said smoothly. "But, truly, I would enjoy a moment more with such an entertaining fellow-traveler, if you would give me leave." The tone of his voice was so earnest of a sudden that Ciel was taken aback.

"Well," Ciel stammered. "I mean, of course." This complete stranger—this infuriating man—in fact, seemed to actually like him. This was something of a novelty, Ciel reflected. Most people were put off by his demeanor and utter lack of interest in friendship—but then, Ciel couldn't say with certainty that he didn't want to be friends with Sebastian.

They wandered forward a bit, without much haste, talking aimlessly, until they had got quite into the middle of the field, where the tall grass and wildflowers grew with uncaring exuberance. Sebastian leaned down to pick a violet, holding it up to Ciel's eyes. "Just as I thought," he said. "the color is the same. Has anyone told you you have wildflower eyes?"

"Has anyone told you you are a cheeky nuisance?" Ciel retorted.

"That's a yes, then?" Sebastian said, half-chuckling.

"Hmph," Ciel said, and crossed his arms; but he started when Sebastian leaned forward to tuck one of the flowers into his hair. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ciel asked, in confused anger, but before he had worked out how he ought to react he was distracted by the sight of Sebastian's face, and the look in his eyes that changed from playful amusement to something almost melancholy and wistful. The absurd gesture suddenly seemed full of strange import, truly given.

"Everyone wants to give something to me today, it seems," Ciel said.

"Oh yes?" Sebastian asked, sitting easily on the ground with the russet grass waving about him. "And what else have you been given today?"

"This cloak," Ciel said. "My aunt gave it to me."

"It is very beautiful," Sebastian agreed. Ciel sat down, the basket heavy on his arm, reminding him of his duties and the house beyond the field; but from the ground, the grass hid everything from sight but the blue open plane of the sky.

"You look sad," Ciel said at last. "Why?"

"I'm thinking of things made to be lost," Sebastian answered cryptically, and turned his eyes away. "What do you carry in that basket there?"

"Oh, this?" Ciel turned to look. "Cakes and wine for my—Elizabeth," he said awkwardly.

"Your Elizabeth? She must be quite a lucky girl."

"Oh—that's not what I meant," Ciel said.

"Ah."

"I wish I could eat some," Ciel said at last, trying to break the strange awkwardness of the moment. "I've delayed much longer than I should have, and I'm so hungry… but it isn't right."

"Why not?" Sebastian asked.

"Well… It isn't mine."

"I know what it's like to be hungry," Sebastian said, with a dark and strange expression, that made Ciel almost want to run away—almost. "I, too, am quite…" he sighed, and he looked Ciel right in the eyes, "…hungry."

"I could give you some food," Ciel said.

"The food for Lady Elizabeth?" Sebastian asked. "No, that wouldn't do at all."

"Yes," Ciel said. "I suppose. But you shouldn't… that is, I wish you wouldn't… you oughtn't to be hungry, if you can eat."

"But one musn't eat something that isn't one's own, and one cannot eat what hasn't been given by one who owns it."

There was the weight of a pronouncement about his words.

"Isn't there anything I can do to help?" Ciel asked.

"What do you have?"

"Nothing," Ciel said. And suddenly it seemed he was talking of more than food. Everything he'd had was gone; all he owned now were borrowed gifts and his own title. And all of it stained with the red shadow that had not left since that day.

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	3. Chapter 3

They thought he didn't know. They thought he didn't know, Ciel was certain of it, because they spoke in codes and whispers and waited until he was out of the house, or asleep in the garret upstairs. But he had seen glimpses here and there, for they had not been as careful as they ought to be, because he was a child. There was the creak of steps at night when the two would enter and Ciel, awake with nightmares of emptiness and death and with no one in the house, would wander in a haze of fear under the cold white moon. Red was on their hands, the Madam and the Butler, and giggling, schoolgirl laughter, as though they were trying to keep secret some silly prank. And when he would hover by the top of the stairs, hidden behind the shadow of the banister, wishing he could walk down and knowing that he didn't dare, sometimes he would see the red clothes dropping down _trip_ _trap_ _splat_ ; "It's so much easier when you don't have to worry how to get the blood off," the doctor would say, and the butler, with the coy voice, would say "I prefer you in it anyway," and they would reach around and under each others' clothes, breathing heavily with their mouths too close together, moaning and moving quiet, quiet, secret, don't wake up the child; doing things that mistresses and their butlers should not do.

But who could he tell? Madam Red loved him, and she protected him, and if she went out in the night and did bad things at least it meant that he could never be afraid someone would sneak into this house the way they had his parents, and kill them, because Madam Red had a gold-handled dagger and a washbasin in the servants' washroom with a plug that could wash away all the blood.

/

Red is a signal saying pay attention; hiding secrets behind it, like his aunt's ruby dresses and cherry laugh, and his own red cloak and Sebastian's carmine eyes, and the way he asked if it wasn't time he should go to the Middlefords' house. And Aunty Angeline's eyes getting wet with tears as she answered, "it's good that you're allowing yourself to have fun again, Ciel. You're a child, you should enjoy it. These things pass so quickly."

"Quicker than you know," the butler added, from behind wispy strands of mouse-brown hair and dull brown suit, with his poison-bright eyes.

And Ciel looked away as quickly as he could, before the _knowing-not knowing_ that passed through the air could turn into something realer, before Madam Red saw through the cloak and into his own eyes, crystal blue like water that washes away blood.

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	4. Chapter 4

It's a few visits, only, as summer, lingering on, becomes something not-quite autumn yet; it's still more nights of the door creaking open when he's meant to be asleep, the round coin of the moon slowly being eaten away into a bright sliver.

Somehow, the darkness seems to shiver its ways out of the nights and into the days in the dappled forest under the old trees, up at the black rock.

And the darkness had bled out of Sebastian's suit and into the peculiar nails of his hand, which Ciel studied, turning this way and that as they sat atop the rock in the forest, the basket, like a clock, set beside them, reminding Ciel always _you have not much time_. He lay stretched, half-curled in Sebastian's lap, while the man ran his fingers through Ciel's hair, and stared down at him with a strange type of fondness, like a man with a favored pet.

"You don't think you should do something about them?" Ciel asked at last. "It might be indication of sickness."

The soft, warm chuckle that rolled out of Sebastian's throat made Ciel annoyed, but he was too lazy to be annoyed, anyway. "I assure you, my nails have always been that way, and I haven't died yet."

Ciel frowned suddenly. "Don't say that," he said. "Don't talk about dying."

"Isn't that what you meant, when you brought up the subject of my nails with such concern?" Sebastian asked, with false sincerity.

Ciel didn't know what he meant, but he didn't think it had been that. Sebastian of all people shouldn't think of dying. It wasn't right.

"No," Ciel said shortly. "It wasn't." He turned, wiggling around to get more comfortable, and caught the edge of one of Sebastian's strange glances. They had been becoming more frequent, and they reminded Ciel of _the murders going on_ and _secrets_ and _blood_.

Sebastian noticed him catching it, and instead of looking away as he used to, he kept Ciel's gaze with the same expression. As though he did not even know quite what he was doing, he licked his lips, and Ciel shivered.

"Are you still hungry?" he said at last.

"Yes, Ciel," Sebastian answered, and the way he said Ciel's name, like the sky was more than cloudless blue but had thunder and storms and darkness made Ciel catch his breath and wish he knew how Sebastian could summon such power from him when he felt like he had none at all. "Very much so…" and he leaned down to rest his chin on the top of Ciel's head, wrapping his arms about him, dangerous and safe.

 _What are people hungry for?_

What was hunger, anyway? The aching in his belly when he hadn't had enough to eat, the memory of those few days after the manor had burnt down, before he had been found by the police wandering lost nearby. The way Madam Red was never very sorry to see Ciel go, no matter how much she loved him, because when he was away she and Grell could do as they pleased, with no one the wiser. The bright smile Lizzy always gave him when he came to see her, a smile that made his insides twist, wishing he could feel like he deserved it, and her laugh, and the way she would turn to him often, waiting for the one thing he couldn't give her. The soft rust of Sebastian's eyes when he didn't know Ciel was looking, that tightness in his face of _want want need_. It was all so complicated, or maybe it was only the shadows that made it so.

When he was a child he had known what hunger was, and it was simple; it was not being able to wait until lunchtime, it was wishing for sweets when his mother said no.

But now the basket of sweets beside him was not his own, and no one would tell him he couldn't take them, because he ought to know better. And the red cloak Aunt Angeline gave him draped carefully to the side by Sebastian's long, thin hands, because if it got dirty she might ask. And the whisper of the wind in the trees, and the moon's waning.

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	5. Chapter 5

"It's too much, too quickly," Grell said. Ciel, perched behind the banister, watched the not-butler pace in the darkened halls, voice forceful and manner abrupt. "They're beginning to get suspicious."

"Don't tell me you're feeling regretful, dear," Madam Red said coldly, pulling off her brown hood to uncover her short hair and her pale face spattered with blood.

Grell laughed, the sound a crazy shriek that made Madam Red pause, glancing sharply up at the landing. "Quiet, Grell," she said. "You'll wake the boy."

"You care too much for that brat," Grell answered with bitterness, and Ciel could see as Angelina clenched her fists, the red-coated shoulders hunched. "He is… my sister's child," she said.

"He's smarter than you give him credit for," Grell retorted. "Someday, he'll make a choice you don't like, and what then?"

"I'm not going to talk about Ciel," Madam Red replied. "I am going to go into the washroom to clean up, and you're going to come with me."

For a moment Grell glared balefully back, seeming so terrifying Ciel wondered that his aunt could stand so calmly, that she didn't realize how thin the thread that held her to her butler was, how close it was to snapping in their rage. But finally, Grell capitulated with a sigh, body folding in on itself again, and suddenly the brown coat, the brown hair were more than ill-fitting accessories, and he bowed his head. "Yes, my lady," he said, and followed Madam Red from the hall.

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	6. Chapter 6

"Such a beautiful little doll you are," Sebastian said, carelessly, as he moved one finger down the brown of Ciel's suit, nails clicking on button after button. "Your aunt has quite an eye for fashion."

"Your insults are getting quite creative," Ciel said back; affectless and bored. Down in the shadow of the forest, there was a stream, and from this fallen tree he could slip his toes in the cold water, watching the little eddies they made, their futile resistance against the water's course.

"Oh, it wasn't an insult," Sebastian answered, and his smile got sharper, like he was laughing at a joke Ciel didn't get. Ciel cast him a long-suffering glance. "No, it was quite in earnest… if you were mine to dress," he continued, "I would choose a slightly different cut. Your aunt still sees you as quite the child."

"And what if she does?" Ciel leaned back, casting a critical glance on Sebastian's own trousers; he had shown no thought to getting terribly soaked but stepped into the stream without a second thought. "I am a child, after all."

Sebastian's grin got wider. "You play very coy, little one."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Ciel said. But he did, almost.

The basket, hanging over the branch of that same tree, the cloth tucked protectively over what was inside; but it wasn't tucked tightly enough. A sudden gust of wind let the cloth flap free, twisting its way into the air.

"Oh dear," Sebastian said. "Now all your sweets will get spoiled." He stepped closer to Ciel, leaned forward to look into the basket, and hesitated before touching it. He leaned back up, sending a rueful smile in Ciel's direction as he straightened. With Ciel sitting on the fallen tree they were almost level, and it was easy enough for Ciel to reach forward to twirl a raven lock about his finger.

"I feel sorry for you, you know," he said, conversationally. "Always so hungry, with nothing to eat."

"Do you?"

"If only I could do something about it," Ciel said, with honeyed regret.

"But alas, the basket is not yours to give," Sebastian said. "Even if it gets spoiled."

"No," Ciel said. "It is not."

For a moment, in the silence of the stream, they waited.

"You shouldn't tease so, if you don't mean it," Sebastian said, watching.

"But how can I know what I mean if I don't try?" Ciel countered. He pulled on the dark strand, and Sebastian's head was pulled down with it; then Ciel let his lips rest cautiously against the other's. In a moment, Sebastian had taken hold of his waist and was kissing back, or perhaps he was biting. _I really think he means to swallow all of me_ , Ciel thought, and in that moment he couldn't find it in himself to care.

But then a bird called in the forest; there was a sudden flash of red wing, and suddenly Ciel was afraid. _I will not lose myself_ , he thought. _Not even if I want to. I can't._ But Sebastian would not let go. There was a scraping gnash, a dark void that seemed to pull Ciel toward it against which he struggled. At first without purpose or hope, but then he felt his hand connect with something smooth and cold—the bottle of wine to take to the Middlefords' house. He brought it down with his hand against the monster-wolf-monster-Sebastian—

It cracked, spilling scarlet and cerise, cochineal and rose. There was blood and flecks of glass in flawless skin and Sebastian's burning, feverish eyes.

"You can't get away," Sebastian growled, as it turned, the feather-fur lengthening, the muzzle bared. "You gave what you owned, and now you are mine."

But Ciel ran, out of the woods and out of the shadows and through the sun-drenched fields to the Middlefords' house, his red cloak spilling out behind him like a sign.

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	7. Chapter 7

"Oh Ciel! What happened?" Lizzy asked as she rushed toward him, Ciel, standing in the open front doorstep, catching sight of Lizzy's pale pink dress in the gloom. "You look a fright! Have you been attacked? Oh, I did say he was taking too long, didn't I?"

Paula, hovering behind, said at last, "Don't you think we ought to let him come inside, then?"

"Oh, of course," Lizzy said, ushering him into the house. "I'm so terribly sorry about the reception, (it's not cute at all!) but mother was struck down with a headache some minutes ago and she has had to go to bed."

"Aunt Francis?" Ciel asked, grabbing onto whatever meaning he could in Lizzy's talk. "I didn't know she suffered from headaches."

"Oh, sometimes she does, but not usually this bad. And just as you were coming, too! She'll be so sorry she didn't get to see you."

"Perhaps I should say hello? Or would she not welcome visitors."

"Oh! I think she would quite like a visitor, if it was you," Lizzy said. "Just for a few minutes, of course."

"Of course," Ciel said, letting them lead him to the darkened bedroom.

"And do tell me what happened to you," Lizzy said. "How did you escape? Had you a gun? A sword?"

Ciel chuckled. "Nothing so heroic as that, I have to say," he answered, and laid a soft chaste kiss on his cousin's cheek. "I will tell you the whole story, I swear."

He pushed open the door of the room, letting the heavy wood creak shut behind him, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. "Aunt Francis?" he called out, and heard a weak, muffled moan in return. It sounded so unlike his proud, stern-faced aunt.

"Is that my little boy? Is that you, Ciel?" the voice came whispering from the curtains under the bed. "Come a little closer, so that I might see you; sit beside me."

 _It's only Aunt Francis_ , Ciel thought, but something told him to run, something in the darkness of the room and the thin reedy sound of his aunt's voice. No. He wouldn't run again.

Ciel stepped forward, watching the body under the piled covers. "Don't you think you would be comfortable with less blankets on?" he asked.

"No, this is quite fine, thank you… but come closer."

Ciel did, and stood beside the bed while his aunt reached out a shaking hand.

"Oh, Aunt…" he said, taking it. "What large nails you have." They were black and clawed, scraping Ciel's hand where he grasped it.

"The better to hold you with, my dear," the raspy voice replied.

"Oh Aunt," Ciel said. "What bright eyes you have." They glowed in the dark of the room.

"The better to see you with, my dear… but come closer." He sat on the side of the bed and watched the figure sit, still bundled in blankets, and let himself be pulled close and held tightly, while a hot mouth breathed into the sweat of Ciel's hair. "Oh Aunt," he said, and laughed a little, despairingly, "What large teeth you have." And he reached up and touched one sharp fang.

"The better to eat you with, my dear," Sebastian answered, calmly. "Why did you run? You knew you could not escape me."

"I was afraid," Ciel said, and let his eyes squeeze shut. "I was afraid of the dark."

"There is dark everywhere, child; not only where I am."

"I know."

This time, when Sebastian kissed him, he didn't move away.

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	8. Chapter 8

It was Aunt Francis who sounded the alarm. Knocked out against the wall, she had staggered up and rushed into the hall, running for her room. The servants behind her, and her daughter, all were lost in her wake; in one hand she gripped a shining sword. When she flung open the door and the windows, the sudden blinding light fell on the blood and the sheets and the dark-clad gentleman who licked his lips and smiled genially at her, and she stabbed him through the heart.

It was a grey day for mourning. The sky had pulled the clouds about it, and a fall chill was in the air, cold, biting, and lost. Lizzy wept profusely, Madam Red and her butler walked beside the coffin, and the undertaker, in his long grey robes, walked swaying beside them. "How did you say the creature died again?" he asked. "Really?" He hovered at the open grave without putting a single sod of dirt on top, until the whole group cast bewildered glances that way.

"Indeed… but was there a fight?" he muttered, as though to himself. "Was there a fight?" He turned to the group suddenly. "I hope you don't mind if I do a little—heh—autopsy here, do you?" he leaped down into the grave and pulled up the coffin lid with one hand. The _crack_ of wood splintering was the only sound.

"What are you doing?" Madam Red choked out. "Somebody, stop him!"

Her butler leaped forward, before being restrained by a hand to the arm. "Wait," Francis said.

The staff the undertaker held, worn and weathered, seemed to have a shimmering blade, like starlight and dreams. It sliced through the monster's body with no trouble at all, and when the insides were open all could see the glint of red and gold.

"Now now, what have we here," the undertaker muttered to himself, and reached his hands in.

/

"These types of creatures can only truly take a willing victim, you see," the undertaker explained to the shocked group, as above, the fitful clouds began to rain.

"It's a miracle," Lizzy said. "Ciel, you're safe!"

Ciel stared down at his hands and his body, naked except for the bright red cloak; he was wet with blood and rain. "Was I not a willing victim?" he asked, as though to himself. His voice was quiet, confused, almost lost.

"I think," Madam Red said at last, "that we should all go home. Come, Ciel—before you catch your death." She stopped, as though regretting her choice of words, and the undertaker, leaning over his staff, began to laugh crazily.

"May I have a moment, first?" Ciel asked. "Alone?"

"It's best to listen to him, my lady," the undertaker said. "These things take some getting used to." So they all trailed away toward the graveyard gate, all except for the undertaker, who stood a ways off under a tree, and watched.

Ciel knelt down. "I'm sorry," he said to the body. It was no longer Sebastian, of course; not any longer. He had gone, fled somewhere Ciel could not follow. "But you did try to eat me." He reached down, as though he could touch the pale, porcelain skin, but the hole was deep, full of rivulets of mud, and only the rain fell. If Sebastian had never met Ciel, he would never have died; but he would still be hungry. And Ciel was still alive, and hungry too. "Perhaps that is the way with living things," he said, quietly. "We are all hungry, until we die."

"That's an interesting philosophy," the undertaker said, from where he had wandered forward, his long, silvery hair swinging down as he peered at Ciel from beside him, giving him a hand to take and be pulled up. "But I don't know if I can say you're wrong."

Ciel stood, and nodded at the undertaker. "I'm not wrong," he said. The undertaker chuckled a little, wondering at the arrogance of youth and the wisdom, and the folly, of age.

And Ciel walked the rest of the way from the graveyard, and into life.

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